Tavern Talk (1998)
We all elbowed up to the bar,
thinking Sunday/Monday
in a Tuesday kind of way.
On the t.v. came another launching.
Puppets on the railing
gave us shoeshines.
Everyone was thinking entertainment.
We had many colonies to dream of.
All the while the bottles danced with dust.
Rusty old men climbed inside the jukebox.
Sounded like an earthquake stirring pinballs.
Acolytes were washing hands in draft beer.
Someone passed a monkey begging peanuts.
"Witness the dawn," a paranoiac whispered.
And around us, the night crumbled.